


No Rest For The Wicked

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: Whole New Vision [4]
Category: Primeval
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-16
Updated: 2009-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-07 11:47:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3172994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Lester was looking forward to a smooth posting and honourable retirement. This didn’t feature in his plans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Rest For The Wicked

            James Lester climbed out of his car, thanked the driver, nodded to the security guards, and unlocked his front door, stepping inside the elegant house. It was not quite so elegant inside, but that was because his son and his partner were staying with him, and Jamie’s tolerance for minimalism was higher than Jon’s- just not much. Lester had seen Jamie’s flat. It had white walls when it was bought, which lasted about as long as it took Jamie to buy a lot of paint and huge paintbrushes; it was now a work of art, but Lester somehow felt that the British government would disapprove if this house were to suffer the same fate. On the other hand, the sketches Jamie blu-tacked to the walls instead of painting the walls were definitely an improvement on Jon’s caving ropes- and why Jon had brought caving kit to Washington, D.C., Lester didn’t know and didn’t care to ask.

 

            He wandered through to the library, where he found Jamie and Jon playing darts, and swallowed back an acidic comment recommending the preservation of the library’s beautiful wood panelling, replacing it with an urbane greeting. Jon wandered over and kissed him, the same easy, familiar gesture that they’d shared for years, and headed for the drinks cabinet.

 

            “Your sense of priority has not escaped you, Captain,” Lester drawled, just because he could, and Lyle looked at him and grinned. He’d made Captain only a year before he left the Army, and it sounded wrong to hear his partner say _captain_ and not _lieutenant_.

 

            “Is this a prelude to one of your mildly twisted BDSM sex games?” Jamie asked, sending a dart whizzing into the second circle of the board. “Because if so, I’d like to be elsewhere.”

 

            Jon laughed and poured three brandies, handing one over to Jamie and one over to Lester, who observed by way of revenge that it never got any less odd to see your son halfway down a glass of alcohol and know it was perfectly legal.

 

            “I’m twenty-nine,” Jamie protested, brandishing a second dart and sipping his drink.

 

            Lester removed his jacket and sat down in an armchair, leaning back and smiling as if he knew something Jamie didn’t, prompting a snigger from Jon and a stuck-out tongue from Jamie.

 

            The phone rang, and Jon picked it up. Lester looked at him quizzically, one eyebrow raised; it wasn’t usual for someone to call the house this late at night. (His Blackberry, yes, frequently, and frequently Jon beat him to the phone and informed whoever it was that it was half-past one in the morning and Sir James Lester wasn’t available for comment. But the house phone?)

 

            “Hello?... Connor?”

 

            Lester closed his eyes wearily. Oh God, please not Connor Temple, not after this evening’s excruciatingly dull political dinner, it was more than he could handle... He’d had years of dealing with that overgrown mechanically-minded toddler and his habit of getting into every kind of mischief the security team could think of and several others that would only ever have occurred to an imaginative chimpanzee on amphetamines. Surely, in his old age, he was due a little respite?

 

            He said the last bit out loud. Jamie snickered.

 

            Lester opened his eyes again, and looked at Lyle, who had gone mysteriously silent. His eyes were wide with shock, and his jaw hanging open just a little bit.

 

            “...Connor, I’m going to put you on speaker. I’ve got James and mini-James-“

 

            Jamie stuck one finger in the air rather emphatically, and Jon just grinned absently-

 

            “-in the room, and they both know about the anomalies already. Also, the room isn’t bugged.” Jon pressed a button. “Now tell the nice people what you already told me...”

           

            And Connor Temple’s voice, excited and laughing and sounding twenty years younger than it ought to and not nearly alarmed as it should, crackled over the Atlantic and into the library. “So, I was sitting in my office at CMU and suddenly you’ll never guess who came in and basically said what the hell are you doing in my office- Cutter! It was _Cutter_!”

 

            Jamie spat out a mouthful of brandy and made a high-pitched hitching noise of combined shock and alcohol-up-the-nose. On another occasion, Jon would have pointed and laughed, but not now.

 

            “-I mean, I mean, he’s _back_! And not even a bit older! Apparently he came through the Forest of Dean one. There was a blip on the anomaly machine this afternoon, just for like a minute but enough, and he came through!”

 

            There was a deadly pause. Lester broke it, choosing his words carefully. “Connor.”

 

            “Yes?”

 

            “Have you been dabbling in illegal substances, possibly furnished to you by mischievous students?”

 

            “No!” Connor snapped. “Look, I’ll prove it- Nick! _Nick_! For God’s sake, it’s just a toaster, I know it looks all space-age but it’s a toaster and if you’re not careful-“

 

“Ow!” came a distant shout.

 

“-yeah, if you’re not careful that happens. Look, Lester wants to talk to you.”

 

“I do not want to talk to-“ Lester began to protest.

 

“Tough,” Connor said, with a kind of upbeat callousness that Lester last heard when Abby was shanghaiing him into giving the equivalent of a father’s speech at her wedding. It was a pity that some of Abby’s common sense hadn’t rubbed off on Connor as well. “Here’s Nick.”

 

The sound of a phone changing hands, and then Nick’s Scottish half-growl: “Lester, you bastard, are you suggesting that Connor’s hallucinating me?”

 

The glass slid through Lester’s fingers, and shattered on the floor, and there was a very, very long silence.

 

“Jamie?” Lester said eventually.

 

“Yes?”

 

“Start packing.”


End file.
